The more serious result, personally, of the sentence pronounced upon Mr. Cobbett, was the utter collapse of his pecuniary fortunes. The enormous profit derived from the publication of the _Register_ might have been sufficient to cover even the profuse expenditure of Botley House, with its hospitality and its planting experiments, but Mr. Cobbett was eminently a person who (as the Hebrew poet has it) earned money to put it into a bag with holes. This matter, however, might be passed over with light notice, but for its interference with Cobbett’s public services. His is not a solitary instance of a useful life being marred, and its efficiency hindered, by an ignorance of the value of money; and there could hardly be a more decisive evidence of the disastrous results of such ignorance than is presented by this man’s career. PLUTUS is the most exacting of deities; his votaries must be whole-hearted; let FORTUNA come and cast off her shoes as she may.… It was never Cobbett’s aim to get rich. He had, indeed, hoped to provide a snug competence for his children; but for plans of amassing wealth he had supreme contempt. To earn by labour, and to circulate the proceeds, was his economy; and it cannot be denied that, with proper prudence, that is the right economy. The greatest enemy to national prosperity is the plutocrat; and the next greatest is he who can afford, in the prime of life, to live without labour, through the mistaken munificence or benevolence of another. * * * * * It would appear, then, that upon accounts being looked into, in the autumn of 1810, money affairs were found to be almost hopelessly entangled. The three great serial works,--the “Debates,” “Parliamentary History,” and “State Trials,” were being produced at a ruinous loss; while the accommodation-paper, chiefly in the hands of Mr. Swann, amounted to thousands of pounds. Cobbett had not looked at his balance for six years! His practice was to ask Mr. Wright to send him ten, twenty, or forty pounds as he wanted it; and to leave the rest of the matter implicitly to him. Wright was, himself, not very clever in the management of money; and, between the two, there came at last the profoundest muddle. It ended in an arbitration, held in the prison; the result being a heavy award against Wright, and a total and irremediable rupture of their friendship. Mr. Budd bought up a large portion of the publications in stock; while Mr. Hansard took into his own hands the three serials which he had been printing for Cobbett.